Local firm may battle state

Local firm may battle state

A misunderstanding worth $75,000 may land a new Sisters business and two government agencies in court.

Timothy Rote, owner of Northwest Telemarketing, moved his company from Wilsonville to Sisters last summer. Northwest Telemarketing provides telephone marketing services.

The company currently employs about 40 people in Sisters, and anticipated as many as 150 jobs at full capacity, with a payroll that could exceed $3,000,000, according to documents provided by the company.

Rote said they made the move because of the difficulty in finding employees in the Portland area's tight labor market. He said he was promised a $50,000 state training grant by Robert Raimondi of the Oregon Economic Development Division in Bend and another $25,000 from Deschutes County for employee development.

Raimondi and Deschutes County Commissioner Linda Swearingen respond that Rote indicated he was expanding his company to Central Oregon, not moving his facilities from Wilsonville. The state grant of $50,000 is not available to companies moving from one community to another in Oregon.

The county grant was contingent on the state grant.

Rote said he was not told of this until he pursued the issue in Salem.

"When we received the paperwork, the grant had become a loan that would be forgiven if we had 72 employees by the end of the third year. We went down to Salem to the state office and were told, basically, to take or leave it. Then the Department of Justice raised an administrative rule that said the program was available only for an expansion, not a company move," said Rote.

"Robert Raimondi made a commitment he could not keep, and he kept us in the dark about it until we met with the Department of Justice," said Rote.

Raimondi replied that during their discussions, Rote "did not indicate they were going to close the Wilsonville operation. It was presented as an expansion. That is how we pursued it."

Raimondi said that "we don't think there is any factual basis for (Rote's) allegations."

County Commissioner Linda Swearingen said the county was told by Raimondi and Robin Roberts, then head of the Central Oregon Economic Development Council, that the move to Sisters was an expansion.

The county offered its grant contingent on Northwest receiving the state money. When Northwest was disqualified from the state grant, the county grant was off the table as well.

However, Swearingen said that "that does not mean we would not consider the $25,000 request without the state." She said that "I have suggested that Mr. Rote come in to the county and see if we can't put together an arrangement separate from the state."

It doesn't matter to Deschutes County if the jobs come from outside the state or Wilsonville, Swearingen said.

Rote said that "we hope that we can convince the state to keep their obligations but it appears that we will have to work through counsel on that."